


The Seventh Son: Act One - Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi

by strixus



Series: The Book of Dreams [6]
Category: Gundam Wing, The Endless
Genre: Crossover, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-27
Updated: 2009-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-05 08:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strixus/pseuds/strixus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Destruction returns to Earth, called by the war, as other forces stir, summoned by the same strife. Death has a warning for Duo, Treize ponders the source of the Gundams' power, and Zechs is enticed by the lure of power.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. O' Fortuna, Part 1 - On a Bright and Distant Star

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> O Fortuna /O Fortune,  
> velut luna/ like the moon  
> statu variabilis, / you are changeable,  
> semper crescis / ever waxing  
> aut decrescis; / and waning;  
> vita detestabilis / hateful life  
> nunc obdurat /first oppresses  
> et tunc curat / and then soothes  
> ludo mentis aciem, / as fancy takes it;  
> egestatem, / poverty  
> potestatem /and power  
> dissolvit ut glaciem. / it melts them like ice.

The planet was small, little more than a pebble in the blackness of the backwater of space its sun inhabited. It was smallest of all of the planets in its system, alternately baked by blasting solar winds from the tiny, white-hot star and frozen by the blistering cold of space that touched its unprotected skin of stone.

The small world was a doomed one, cursed to the death of any planet too close to its parent star: the slow, lazy death spiral into the gravity well of the star. It was to be torn to shreds and vaporized by the gravity and heat of the very sun that it had been born along side. The edge of a solar flare rose from the blinding light of the star, its lazy arc throwing slowly cooling plasma thousands of miles into space. The small planet shuttered.

Incongruous with this small cosmic tragedy was a seemingly human figure standing on a small ridge on the planet's surface. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a barrel chest that spoke clearly of great skill and strength with the long broad sword that was slung in a scabbard across his broad back. The sword was well used, battered and scratched, its hilt bound with faded leather wearing thin in places, and a red spotted white sack hung from around it, odd shapes forming bulges in its cloth sides. The figure watched the solar plasma of the flare evaporate in the coldness of space, warm, emerald green eyes reflecting the white glare of energy with a sparkle of laughter. His face showed the stubble of a thick, red beard that matched the loose spray of long, strait red hair that cascaded freely down his back.

He was Destruction, middle child of the Endless, the eternal spirit of the annihilating forces of the universe. But despite his eternal nature, the universe needed his presence no longer to control the destruction of the old to make way for the creation of the new. He had fled the company of the other Endless for the solitary far reaches of the universe where creation was still new. Yet the universe would not let go of him, for he still always heard the distant call of his duties, the distant tug of wars and stellar death, of the collapse of galactic cores and growing singularities.

But above all, the call of war was strongest. Across the universe a great war was being fought around the tiny, blue green water world that was the focus now of most attention in the universe and all its many dimensions, planes and spheres. The call of war was all but overpowering on such a scale even to the will of the Endless.

With a thought, the figure vanished, leaving the small ridge empty once more, and leaving no observer to the next great plume of plasma that melted the skin from the planet. With a final shutter under the press of gravity, the planet cracked like an egg and its slowly fragmenting form began to distend, falling towards the sun.


	2. O' Fortuna: Part 2 - The Awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sors immanis / Fate - monstrous  
> et inanis, / and empty,  
> rota tu volubilis, / you whirling wheel,  
> status malus, / you are malevolent,  
> vana salus / well-being is vain  
> semper dissolubilis, / and always fades to nothing,  
> obumbrata / shadowed  
> et velata / and veiled  
> michi quoque niteris; / you plague me too;  
> nunc per ludum / now through the game  
> dorsum nudum / I bring my bare back  
> fero tui sceleris. / to your villainy.

Imagine the universe as a chain, each link a level of existence, a contained dimension of life and time, linked to the others above and below it. The top of the chain is the upper plane; the highest dimension where the Endless inhabit. The bottom of the chain is the lowest plane, the plane of darkness, where the oldest, dark forces of chaos still reside. And between these two points are all the dimensions of life, strung along this chain like pearls on a string, from Hell, low on the chain, to the mortal worlds, the middle of the chain, and the Realm of the Fair Folk, and Heaven, and all places above. And between the most high dimensions, the realms of order, and the low dimensions of chaos a war is constantly fought, for the beings of chaos are creatures of hate and destruction.

In a dimension just above those of the darkest chaos are imprisoned the eldest demons of chaos, the warriors of the great Chaos Lords who dwell in the deepest realms. In this dimension they sleep, until they are needed by their Lords for battle, imprisoned there by those same Lords, for fear of their wild power. But sometimes, only rarely, one awakens prematurely, and rises to the mortal realms to the call of great wars; for all of the elder demons, no matter of what elements they are born, are warriors in their blood.

And in this realm, one of the great warlords of chaos has awoken, feeling the call of war vibrating through its being. It is a sweet song, intoxicating and overwhelming, as irresistible as a feast to a starving man. And while its brothers and sisters but stir in their sleep of centuries, it stretches great wings of flame and bone, and yawns both pairs of razor filled jaws, its blood again heated by that song of mortal war. Hundreds of eyes flashed with the color of old blood, the color of livid bruises, their facets gleaming like the facets of rubies and sapphires as it focused their lidless lenses, casting off the veils of sleep. Bones moved, skinless muscles and tendons stretched, its scales and plates of bone sweating blood from under them.

It's name is a scream of terror, the cry of those dying from plagues of flesh, the boiling sound of blood, but it is known by a name of mortal tongues as well. It was the Light Bringer, it was the Morning Star, before the usurper who wore its names ruled Hell. And on wings of glowing blue flame, with a lash of its bone and plasma tail, it rose and moved up the dimensional chain, its wake felt but unseen by all but the most powerful of beings.

The war was calling, and it felt the call of other demons at war, and heard their songs. And in a voice of shattering bone and dragon's roars it joined its battle song into the chorus of voices.

I am Epyon, it sang, I am the Devil of the Fire, Bringer of the Madness, Rider of the Waves of Time.

I am Epyon, it sang, I am the Wind of Delusion, the Prophet of Destruction, the Killer of Dreams.

I am Epyon, it sang, I am the Slayer of Dawn.


	3. O' Fortuna: Part 3 - A Puzzle in Captivity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sors salutis Fate is against me  
> et virtutis in health  
> michi nunc contraria, and virtue,  
> est affectus driven on  
> et defectus and weighted down,  
> semper in angaria. always enslaved.  
> Hac in hora So at this hour  
> sine mora without delay  
> corde pulsum tangite; pluck the vibrating strings;  
> quod per sortem since Fate  
> sternit fortem, strikes down the string man,  
> mecum omnes plangite! everyone weep with me!

In the void of sensory information, the first crack in the darkness was sound. Not chaotic sound, not natural sound, but the slow rise of music from some indeterminable source. What began as a ripple became a tsunami of sound, voices rising in a torrent to flood out the darkness. And as it subsided into a dull roar of voices the darkness passed, rising into the gloom of flickering gas light, and with the light came the awakening of all of the other senses.

The library was small, smelling of the musk of old book leather, the bitter bite of gas flames, and under both of those, the heady smell of roses. Thick carpet covered the floor to a foot away from the wall, revealing cool, dark hardwood boards under the enveloping plush of the carpet pile. The walls, where they showed between deep set book cases of old, well loved wood and wall hangings of the same thick pile as the carpet, were some dark color, half between dried blood and the heart of a ripe peach, the deep rose of late summer. The air was the heat of blood heat, hot to the skin but comfortable to the deep body, wrapping around the body like a thick blanket, cozy and suffocating at the same time. The room was bereft of furniture out side of a handful of globes, and a single, dark wood desk.

And it was at that desk that the room's sole inhabitant sat, a tall figure in the small room, yet blending into its darkness and gloom in both his posture and expression. His head down turned towards the desk, resting on the tips of long, noble fingers pressed into the forehead; his eyes were closed in an expression of deep frustration and pain, sorrow creeping around the edges of his eyes, causing twitches of the delicately groomed, forked eyebrows that rested like feathers on his brow.

Treize Kushrednada was troubled. The day had put an end to a stage in his life, forced him to disassociate himself with Romafeller in such a violent way that he knew it had ended his career. But that did not matter. What mattered was that Zechs had escaped his unjust fate, and Treize had seen the new future Romafeller wanted: a future of useless wars, fought not by men, but by machines without minds. It could not happen, he knew, so long as he or any noble solder still lived. But that would be the problem, he knew. In this war, this horrible war that had begun so nobly, the honor of the solder was being lost. Soon, all that would be left would be Zechs, himself, and -

Treize stopped his line of thought on those words, eyes coming open, gleaming: the Gundam pilots. The Gundams seemed to be the greatest weapons of all of history, piloted by young men of noble spirit, or at least with a potential of noble spirit. That was the answer he knew, the Gundam's were the only vestige of nobility left in the war. But why? No one knew what made them so powerful, despite constant study of their design. There was something more to them than gundanium, hydraulics, and computer systems, something that almost felt alive.

And he knew who could find out what this thing was. Moving his free hand over the desk, he tapped a spot on the desk, which seemed nothing more than wood before a flat screen appeared. Manicured fingertips tapped out commands, bringing up the address of a member of his staff. Christopher Armando DeWitt, a professor at a near by college, was by Treize's opinion, the most knowledgeable person about the true workings of the world. If anyone could find the true workings of the Gundams, it was DeWitt. The panel dialed the number for the professor, and it rang once.

"Good evening, Chris." Treize paused, and exchanged pleasantries with the warm, scholarly voice. "Chris, I need a favor of you, and I need to see you in person to discuss it." Another pause, another exchange. "Yes, yes that's fine. As soon as possible. Thank you, Chris. My house staff will be expecting you then." A click, and the voice phone ended the call.

The smile that curved across the pale, noble face was as close to joy as it showed, a delicate curve of fine, soft lips. He would learn the source of the power of the Gundams and he would learn to control it himself.


	4. Fortune plango vulnera: Part 1 - Death During the Lunch Hour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fortune plango vulnera I bemoan the wounds of Fortune  
> stillantibus ocellis with weeping eyes,  
> quod sua michi munera for the gifts she made me  
> subtrahit rebellis. she perversely takes away.  
> Verum est, quod legitur, It is written in truth,  
> fronte capillata, that she has a fine head of hair,  
> sed plerumque sequitur but, when it comes to seizing an opportunity  
> Occasio calvata. she is bald.

Duo Maxwell was talking to Death.

The steam from two cups of hot tea rose between them in the chill, still air, curling into fanciful shapes as the tendrils of warm vapor cooled and collapsed in on themselves. She sat across from him, looking exactly as she had so many months ago, completely unchanged, down to the wisps of hair that hung astray across her pale forehead. Dark eyes regarded Duo with that continual hint of laughter that he had come to find simultaneously unnerving and unbelievably charming, and Duo fidgeted under her gaze. She smiled and giggled.

The message had come the day before, left taped to the door of the small room he had rented with the help of Hilde, summoning him to this small cafe. The handwriting had been unfamiliar, tight and spidery, on paper that had felt like vellum or parchment, and the note had been unsigned. But he knew it was from her, and had not even needed to see the ankh imprinted into the silver wax that had sealed the note to know that. It had her feel about it, so that when he touched it he heard the flutter of distant wings, as though somewhere far away hundreds of sparrows had taken flight.

And she had been waiting for him at the table, just as she had said she would be, a dark woolen shawl wrapped around her shoulders, her customary outfit just as jet black as ever, the only thing about her that ever changed. The tea had been already set on the table, and hand been steeping just long enough to be strong as she poured it for him as he sat. She was unnerving like that.

"Hello, Duo." She looked across the table at him, through the curls of vaporous tea steam. "Its good to see you again."

"Its good to see you again, too, though it's not something I was exactly expecting." He took a sip of the tea, holding the cup to ward off the chill that had settled in the air of the colony since the last attack had damaged the heating system. She did the same, and an awkward moment of silence passed across the table like a ghost.

"So," she began, and Duo looked up from the dark reaches of the bottom of the teacup to be met by the equally dark pools that were the eyes of the female face Death wore. "Aren't you the least bit curious why I wanted to talk to you?"

Duo shrugged. "I knew you'd tell me in your own time. You're like that, I'm learning; you have your own time about everything."

"And that," she said, pointing a long and immaculately manicured black nail at his face, level with his nose, "Is exactly why I wanted to talk to you. You have gotten the worst attitude in the last few weeks, ever since that incident with overblown Chaos demon."

Duo sat for a moment and tried to decipher what she was talking about. "Chaos demon? I'm guessing you mean the WingZero?"

"So that's what its calling itself now. Its name is Zephiruxs, and its been wandering about the universe for eons causing trouble. It's not truly a Chaos demon, but that's the closest thing we can call it. Anyway, Duo, I was worried about how your encounter with it might have affected you. You've gotten nearly as sullen as my younger brother on a good day!" She smiled but it was half hearted.

"So, you were worried? About me?" He couldn't help but smile and laugh. She regarded him with a look of mock malice.

"Of course I was worried! You're carrying around a piece of me in that mortal body of yours! For all intents and purposes, you're my son!"

Duo tried very had not to show shock at that. Death looked shocked that she had even said it.  
"Do you really mean that?" Duo looked at her, watching her regain her calm.

"Yes I do, Duo." She pulled the dark woolen shawl around her shoulders, adjusting it. She suddenly looked much older than her normal, childlike image of herself, perhaps in her late thirties or early forties, just starting to show the lines of age around her dark eyes. "You're my son, and my favorite son at that."

"I guess I can't call you mother, can I?" Duo said it as a joke, but almost wished he could call her that word that he had never had anyone to call.

"I'd like that. Id like that very much." She smiled, the young Death once again, shawl draped around youthful shoulders, the silver fastener hanging in a dangerously seductive manner.

"Stop that. That's really weird."

"Stop what?" She grinned, playfully.


	5. Fortune plango vulnera: Part 2 - A Dream of Future Destinies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Fortune solio On Fortune's throne  
> sederam elatus, I used to sit raised up,  
> prosperitatis vario crowned with  
> flore coronatus; the many-coloured flowers of prosperity;  
> quicquid enim florui though I may have flourished  
> felix et beatus, happy and blessed,  
> nunc a summo corrui now I fall from the peak  
> gloria privatus. deprived of glory.

Zechs Merquise was dreaming, and in his dream, he was still Milliardo Peacecraft, a name he had not worn for many years. But in his dream, as it had been in many dreams before, he was still that noble young man he had been in times past. That name had meant much to him in those days, far more perhaps than it should. That name had been integral into that past, as essential as thread in cloth. But now it was disassociated from who he was, was all but a separate person. A person that had died along with the kingdom it had been a prince of.

Zechs Merquise dreamed of his father's court, as it had been in its glory days before the fall of the kingdom to its enemies. He stood in the grand hall of the palace of the Sanq Kingdom, surrounded by the shimmer and glimmer of guild and marble. The hall's old baroque beauty, stone and gold and brass and velvet, wrapped around him like a second skin, as natural to him as the flesh on his bones and born on to him just as much as that flesh. Smooth columns carved from single trees, leading up to a ceiling of painted vaults and gingerbread molding, with heavy red and gold carpet in the pattern of Autumn leaves laying up to the marble roots of the pillars. And the annulets of these pillars were crowned with capitals of gold and silver wreaths of oak and holly leaves, dangling with crystal clusters of holly berries and acorns defusing and scattering the light of the hall into rainbows.

And what light! Grand windows lined the hall, like those of a cathedral, their Romanesque arches open and lazy, filled will great panes of glass. And beyond them the landscape of the Sanq Kingdom, beautiful and green. But even at night, as it was now in the dream, the hall was lit as brilliantly as day, with thousands of candles. Great chandeliers of crystal and silver hung from the vaults above, while candelabras of brass and gold stood in clusters between every pillar. It was beautiful, a sparkle of light like the flare of a star, glowing and glittering, alone in the night surrounding it.

And there was life in this place, this dream of a place that now stood in ruin, alone and abandoned. It was filled with the people of the type that filled the court: nobles, dreamers, madmen, and women. Those women he remembered well, and they filled his dream hall with their pale faces and heady perfumes, the swish of their gowns like the sound of birds moving in their roosts. Those women, all flirtation and swoons, all after the favor of the man who would be the next Peacecraft king, after some hold on him. But he had played them well, using their ambitions to gain what he wanted from them and leaving them to argue over whom he favored more, and none could claim hold over the prince of the Sanq kingdom. He had been foolish then, he knew, foolish to indulge as he had, playing a game too dangerous to loose, but not realizing since he had always won. It was a game he would never play again.

He passed through the Great Hall, through the grand doors of oak and silver that stood at the end of the hall, and into the throne room of the palace. More grand than the Great Hall, more lavish by a thousand times, the room surrounding the great black and white marble dais that was the ceremonial seat of the rulers of the Sanq kingdom. Velvet draperies, dark as the wines from the hills surrounding the capital, hung from the span of ever vault, embroidered in silver and gold, riddled with gems that flashed like trapped hummingbirds in the light. The room was exactly as he remembered it, immaculate to the last detail, and then, the room changed.

Red light, the heat of flames, filled the room, yet there was no fire. Dark shapes moved behind the draperies, dancing like warped reflections of the dancers in the Great Hall, and voices singing some mad chant, a gruesome parity of choral music, filled his ears. And then his eyes locked on the dais. Seated on the throne, his father's throne, was a figure out of nightmare. Multifaceted eyes were scattered across what should have been the things face, a grotesque of fangs, horns and tusks and exposed muscle and plates of bone, and each lidless eye tracked onto Milliardo like a hunting hawk tracking a pigeon. Wings of blue flame and bone spread behind the bulk of the thing obscuring the velvet curtains behind it, its long tail spilled in a cascade of interlocking bone spikes down the marble stairs. Its jaws opened, bones clicking and sliding past each other like a badly made clockwork, and he felt his mind filled with its voice.

"Lightning Baron...." The voice was like thousands of screams, the crackle of flames, the crumbling of battlements. The creature extended one of its many arms out towards him, a hand with too many bones and fingers reaching forward. "Come to me..." The claw beckoned for him.  
"I am your Destiny..."

And in the night, Zechs Merquise awoke with only the memory of a dream of the past, and only the thought that a nightmare had awoken him, but no memory of what it had been.


	6. Fortune plango vulnera: Part 3 - Parallel Courses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fortune rota volvitur: The wheel of Fortune turns;  
> descendo minoratus; I go down, demeaned;  
> alter in altum tollitur; another is raised up;  
> nimis exaltatus far too high up  
> rex sedet in vertice sits the king at the summit -  
> caveat ruinam! let him fear ruin!  
> nam sub axe legimus for under the axis is written  
> Hecubam reginam. Queen Hecuba.

Destruction had returned home. The tiny Greek island had changed little in his long absence, perhaps a bit more wild, perhaps a bit less beautiful, but it still echoed with the power of his continued habitation on the island so many human lifetimes ago. The grass still grew green, the trees still whispered with tiny fair folk, the flowers still bloomed as though cared for by some fastidious gardener. The wind blew perhaps a bit colder, but nothing beyond that had changed much.

The house still stood, though in disrepair, wisteria and ivy crawling it sides and roof like a Medusa mass of snakes. Destruction smiled, and the wisteria bloomed into a shower of white and purple flowers, months out of season. He was home.

 

Floating in raw vacuum, thousands of miles beyond the orbit of the moon, Epyon watched with its thousands of eyes the battle that raged surrounding the tiny blue green gem of a world. It was such a beautiful place, even to its dark eyes, glowing and luminous. How it longed to be in such a place as that. But it had been bared from that world, and could draw no closer than this without being summoned by a powerful mortal. The denial of this war, of this beautiful world that lingered just out of its reach, enraged the Chaos demon.

No one, mortal or god, denied it its desires. Its vengeance would be beautiful, a masterwork of destruction. Fangs filled a lip-less grin, and as it began to reach out its mind to the glittering gem of a world below, looking for mortal minds powerful enough to summon it.

 

Treize Kushrednada was preparing himself for his dinner with Chris DeWitt, reading and researching while simultaneously ordering his house staff to prepare the dinner and clean the estate. He had become convinced that the power of the Gundams was unworldly, an idea that had crept into his skull only recently but had taken firm hold the more he had read.  
But what was the nature of this power, unworldly or no? He could not know, he had no experience with such things. But DeWitt would know, and would find how Treize could harness this power. And he would harness it, and master it, and through it, he would have the glory that had been denied him.

 

Duo sat alone in the hangar bay, working through log files downloaded from the battle system of the Shinigami. He had never been very good with such things, but now he at least found them tolerable with the help of Shinigami. He plodded through them, trying to finish before it got to late.

The Shinigami roared suddenly, a sound like a tiger the size of a building roaring, startling Duo. The laptop he had been working on beeped loudly and then died. The Shinigami continued to roar, but the pitch rose to all but a scream. Duo cowered, questioning the suit over and over again in his mind, wondering what was wrong.

"The Slayer of Dawn comes, the Wind of Madness comes, the old one, the old one ...." The Shinigami's voice rose again to a scream, a mountain cat cry. "The Killer of Dreams is awake!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of Act One


End file.
